Above is the new background image for my work desktop. My boss has pictures of her grandkids, I go more for images of sci-fi majesty. This is either promo art or the concept piece for the final scene of the 1985 non-classic The Quiet Earth.
I've only seen this flick a couple of times over the years. My distinct impression is that most of the movie is only okay, not particularly awesome, but the final scene is 100% kick-you-in-the-brain great. I'm going to spoil it here, since we're talking about an old movie nobody watches: the hero dies, then mysteriously wakes up on an unknown beach, and this Saturn-looking world rises over the weirdly-clouded horizon. No explanation, roll the damn credits.
Somehow in just a few seconds of poorly-animated matte painting cheesiness, this scene captures nearly all the enigmatic majesty and power that 2001: A Space Odyssey tries to reach in its approximately 400+ minute final act.
I don't use visual aids much when gaming around the tabletop. Passing around a picture to gawk at seems to really break the enchantment for me. But posting a link in the chat window of a Google+ Hangouts game seems to work a lot better. In Jeremy's recent Outland session he shared a picture of a monster to great effect.
Just to be clear, I'm not advocating that we flash pictures on the screen for every little thing in a G+ game. The point of using hangouts isn't to act as a subsitute for our imaginations. But I like the idea of once in a while being able to wow the players with a really kickass picture, like an alien sunrise or a particularly messed-up demon or something. In fact, that might be the missing puzzle piece for a good sci-fi exploration game.
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